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Probably the most famous swan-human transformation of all is set out at the end of Wulfram von Eschenbach’s epic poem Parzifal. The most famous version of the story is Wagner’s opera Lohengrin. Wagner is good at using his sources accurately, while condensing the number of incidents and characters to the minimum he can get away with for dramatic purposes, so we’ll use his version, mostly.

Wagner tells the story from the woman’s point of view. Lohengrin arrives in silver armour (Wagner’s version is the origin of the phrase “knight in shining armour”) comes to “save” Elsa, but does he really exist, or is he a sort of psychic projection of Elsa’s? Anyway, here’s Elsa’s story.

What’s the time?

It’s odd when magical tales have specific dates and places, but this story happens in February in the year 932. Many knights have collected in Brabant, because Henry the Fowler, king of Frankreich, wants to assemble a multi-national force to fight the Magyars, who invaded Europe with a lot of fire and pillage, rape and killing. Now they collect annual tribute from their conquered lands, and from their neighbours who don’t want to be invaded.

Henry comes to Brabant, in what is now Belgium, because there are a lot of mounted knights there, and he hopes to use their cavalry in the coming battle with the Magyars. That’s the background.

What’s Elsa up to?

Elsa is the daughter of the leading noble in Brabant. A month earlier, she was out in the forest with her younger brother Gottfried. Something weird happens and she drops asleep. When she wakes up her brother has disappeared.

A knight, Telramund, backed by his wife Ortrud, accuses her of murdering her brother, to secure the throne of Brabant for herself.

The king decides to hold a trial by combat, to test the truth of this accusation. Obviously Elsa can’t go up against the biggest and best swordsman in Brabant herself, so she has to appoint a champion to fight for her.

Unfortunately, all the other knights know that Telramund is the most fearsome fighter in Brabant, and challenging him, even on Elsa’s behalf, is a suicide mission.

So Elsa goes into a trance. She imagines a knight coming to save her, a knight from a far-away land, clad in silver armour.

And then: amazement! (to everyone else: not to her) the very knight she describes turns up!

He comes by river, standing, his silver armour blinding in the sun, resting on his sword, in a small boat pulled by a swan.

He arrives and thanks the swan extremely politely. He comes ashore, and immediately agrees to fight Telramund, who he defeats quickly and easily, but spares his life. Then he offers his hand in marriage to Elsa.

Elsa is a lonely girl. No one local was prepared to fight for her. She accepts.

So Elsa is found innocent in the trial, and the wedding is announced.

Happy Ending!

Well, not quite. But we’ll have the rest of the story next week.

An observation about fear

I mentioned that it’s not clear whether the knight exists, or whether he’s a sort of psychic projection created by Elsa.

It’s interesting that Elsa isn’t afraid while she’s being accused of murder, and it seems almost impossible for her to find a champion. If she didn’t find a champion, she’d be found guilty of murder and possibly witchcraft, and she’d die a very horrible death. That doesn’t scare her. But once her champion is there, she seems to be very afraid.

But we’ll continue this story next week! No peeking!

Photo

In the photo, the swan comes to an abrupt halt on the river Scheidt. (Which runs through Brabant.) And knocks over my champion, who is clad in … nothing. But she shines, she shines.

This is Episode 2 of a short story. Well, it’s short by my standards: I expect it to take only three or four episodes. Episode 1 is here. Read it if you haven’t and you feel like it, then come back.

Don’t Do That! 2

Gavain groaned. He had, indeed, spanked Cassie without her permission. He said, “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. I mean, truly: I apologize.”

“God, you’re fish in a barrel. I was teasing you. You’re easy. Truth?”

“Ok.”

“It was mildly pleasant. It’s not one of my turn-ons, particularly, but I didn’t hate it. How, um, I suppose I should ask, how was it for you?”

“I’m not sure. I mean, your ass always feels good to me.” She looked irritated, so he corrected course.

“I don’t know,” he said. “When I had the thought about my, uh, client, I mean, when it occurred to me to spank her, I had a kind of flash, like a vision of what it’d be like. It was hot as fuck. I went, full on, this-is-awkward, unwanted erection. In about five seconds. Took ages to get it down again.”

“Did she notice?”

“Oh yeah. She laughed at me. A lot.”

“Oh, poor you.”

“God no. I was relieved. Could have been much worse.”

“I suppose. Anyway, what’s that got to do with how hot it was to spank me? Or not?”

“Because when I imagined it she was really into it. That’s what made it so hot.”

“So my reaction was… disappointing?” Cassie didn’t look sorry.

“I wasn’t sure if you hadn’t noticed, or you were putting up with it, or it was sort of okay but nothing special. So that wasn’t so hot.”

“On behalf of all womanhood, I apologize for not being a porn star. You’ll just have to put up with real girls.”

I saw a red-haired woman, waving at me. She’d been my submissive nearly ten years ago. We’d separated because at the time I’d been a very committed dom-slut. I was honest and open about it, but she wanted a settling-down kind of dom, and that was not me.

But I’d introduced her to bdsm, at her request, and to the city, which she didn’t function in at first. She was a country girl from a small town.

She lost valuables because she’d do things like put her bag down in shops and walk away from it. She’d attract predators because she’d go out and look in all directions at corners, so that people could notice that she was beautiful, confused and not remotely street-wise.

She was used to living among honest people who knew her. So I taught her wariness, and how not to draw attention to herself as prey. Sometimes I’d have to drive those lessons home, as doms will, so that her bottom would give her a sort of warning twinge when she had the urge to do something stupid. So although we weren’t still together we were very much friends.

After she’d left me and launched herself as a sub-about-town, she’d changed her name to Delores. Her real name was Mary-Jo, which sounds like a Dukes of Hazzard name but it was real, and I liked it. She was wise waiting till she’d ended our dom/sub relationship before changing it to Delores. I’d never have allowed it. Anyway it was done.

So when she’d come up and hugged me and rubbed her face all over mine, I eventually disengaged and introduced her. “This is Arethusa, my slavegirl. And this – “

“Ohhh, you lucky girl!” That’s the sort of thing you want your ex-submissives to say to your current submissive. “I hope he’s…” She stopped, since she still had enough country girl in her not to want to say things like “beating and fucking you often and hard” to a stranger.

But Arethusa got that: she nodded, smiling. So I said, “And Arethusa, this is Delores. My wonderful ex.” That was the first time I’d ever used the new name. Mary-Jo/Delores knew I wasn’t enthusiastic about her re-branding. But it was time to stop being a shit about it: Delores she was.

So the two women looked at each other. I said, “So I’m showing Arethusa the wonders of Club Bento. But I thought you said you didn’t come here any more?”

“I don’t really. I’m showing the place to a friend of mine. I seem to have lost her.” She frowned, and looked around. Eventually the strobe lights from the dance floor pointed in the right direction, because she shouted, “Hey, Cash! Come’ere!”

A tiny and energetic Chinese girl, with a platinum Louise Brooks cut, turned around. She wore a white bra and a tiny black leather skirt that possibly had more zips than it had leather, and hugged her arse except for the bottom two inches of buttocky undercurve, because the skirt stopped before it got there.

She looked over, and edged her way across the dancefloor to us. “Someone you’ve got to meet!” Delores shouted.

She emerged from the dance-scrum, looking at Arethusa and me, and then, puzzled and more specifically, at me.

She shouted “Jaime!”

She jumped me and straddled my waist so that her crotch pressed against my cock. And it was necessary to support her by holding on to her ass. It really was necessary, for physics reasons as well as because of the excellence of that ass.

All that was good, obviously, but I wanted to get to the introduction part of the conversation quickly. This couldn’t be making Arethusa happy.

But I had a problem. I had no idea who this girl, beaming at me like a searchlight, might actually be.

Cassie astride and above him, jockeying vehemently with her eyes closed, was focused on her orgasm. She had no notion that he, specifically, was there. Gavain, providing her fulcrum, knew she’d reached her point of no return.

He moved his hand down from her hip and smacked her bottom, experimentally. There was a small sound, a slap, but she didn’t open her eyes or change her rhythm. Gavain considered the sensation. His handful of her ass felt great, of course, but it always did, whether she was still or bouncing, whether his hand arrived hard or soft.

But did he get off on spanking her? Did it add an edge to the already excellent experience of having sex with Cassie? He smacked her again, on the other side, a little harder. Cassie still didn’t open her eyes, but she expelled her breathe, once, hard, through her nose, and lowered her body so her breasts touched his chest and his cock slipped further into her. She sped up, frantic for speed.

By way of encouragement he smacked her in time with her movements, until she arched her back, all muscles clenched, and made her orgasm noise, low and loud. It sounded to Gavain like an engine racing between gears. He thought that was her, her enjoyment celebrated lustily with no concern for whether she sounded beautiful. He’d got over loving her, after she’d left him. But he still loved that.

He let her rest, happy, without coming himself because she knew she’d want more in a few minutes, and it’d take him about twenty minutes to half an hour to recover if he came. He kissed her forehead and her ear, and she opened her eyes. “Hello you.”

Gavain said, “Hey you.” He put his hand back on her left buttock where he’d smacked it. There was a tiny glow of warmth.

Cassie frowned. “Um. Gavain, that was new. New for you, anyway. Were you trying to spank me?”

Gavain felt himself blushing. “It was… sort of an experiment. Did you mind? Or did you like it?”

“Um. It was ok. I didn’t mind. I suppose I wondered how come. Have you got some new girl who likes that?”

“Er, not exactly. Or not at all. There’s a girl, and I found myself thinking it’s be a really good idea, and amazingly hot, if I spanked her. And it wouldn’t be a great idea. It’d be a really stupid, unethical, terrible idea. To do anything with her. But I don’t think I’ve ever thought that about someone before.”

“Ahhhh huh.” Cassie wriggled very slowly on his cock, still inside her, but down to half hard. “So. This girl’s a client, yes?”

“Ump. She is.”

“She has that honor, my lord. And she probably does need spanking. But I can see that you can’t. But what were you doing with me?”

“I, uh, haven’t spanked anyone. I wanted to see if I thought it was hot.”

In Greek myth Cyncnus, King of the Ligurians, was in love with Phaeton. Phaeton was the annoying young man who asked his father, the sun-god Helios (but it’s Apollo in some versions), for proof that he was his father’s spon and that his father loved him.

So Helios agreed to give his son anything he asked. Phaeton asked to drive the chariot iof the sun. Helios warned him that he wasn’t strong enough to control the team of wild horses that lead the sun through the sky. But Phaeton insisted, and Helios could not go back on his promise.

Of course Helios was right. Phaeton lost control of the horses, and the sun followed the chariot so close to earth that it burned crops, birds, animals and people. Eventually Zeus had to put an end to the disaster by knocking the chariot out of the sky with a thunderbolt. Phaeton was immediately killed.

But his lover, Cyncnus, was inconsolable. He sat by the lake near his palace, day after day, staring into the water, thinking of the young man he’d loved and lost.

Eventually Apollo took pity on Cyncnus and turned him into a swan. Not an intelligent, speaking swan like the children of Lir, but one who had forgotten all human concerns and loves, and who was aware of no future and no past, and lived only in the moment.

Two years ago I hosted about 30 people for Christmas. It was a lot of fun. There was the roaring and giving out presents thing, which I’m good at. And making the table and seating for all guests, which involved removing a door and using it as one of the tops for the long table. (Re-hanging the door afterward was a massive pain in the arse, by the way. Use your doors as tabletops if you have to, but expect a lot of work.)

Then last year I was only host to my ex-girlfriend and her mother and idiot brother. I like her mother, and, since she was instrumental, as an expert witness, in defeating the government’s attempt to ban Portnoy’s Complaint, I’m proud of her. She prefers the 19th century novel, so she’s less proud of that than I am.

This year, I’m Home Alone for Christmas. Just me, rattling about an empty house.

But it’s ok, I’m going to enjoy myself. With Moet and duck. There shall be a fire. With enough Moet I’ll dance around it.

I’m going to take a short break from Maddie’s and Jennifer’s adventures, because there’s another story I was meaning to tell this year. It should only be a few episodes long, and I want to at least begin it this year. It’s the sequel to a story I told a couple of years ago. I’m not going to say which story yet, because if you’ve been reading this blog there’s a Surprise coming.

Unlike the adventures of Jennifer and Maddie, this is a true story.

The story is called “The Kiss”. Ahem.

The Kiss

A few years ago I owned and loved Arethusa, a girl who was cooler and better-looking than me, and didn’t look like an idiot when she danced. She was wise and smart. So I was smitten. For quite a while she’d been begging me to take her to the local bdsm nightclub, because she’d never been to anything like that.

I wanted to take her there and watch her reactions to the whipping bench, and some of the acts who came out at mid-night. The acts were burlesque, essentially, with a very mild bdsm edge, but they were pretty sexy and sexily pretty. I thought she’d enjoy them.

Unfortunately, it took six months for us to go, because I’d declared that taking her to Club Bento (not its real name) would be a reward for good behaviour. Unfortunately, the club’s events generally coincided with her having done something like getting low marks in an university exam, or putting an essay in late.

One of a Master’s duties is to reward and punish, and I couldn’t reward that. So on that night she’d usually find herself tied naked over my dining room table getting a severe caning, and listening to me lecturing her about doing her coursework.

Arethusa didn’t enjoy getting the cane, instant by instant. However, she loved being a girl whose Master kept her under strict discipline, and she knew that punishing her turned me on. It turned her on, too, a few minutes after the actual hurty part had stopped. And the sex after severe discipline tended to be spectacular. So her disciplinary evenings weren’t so bad.

But she still wanted to go to the club.

Finally, she spent a month doing her work, and got a high mark for an essay. So that night she dressed in boots and a midnight-blue tutu, and her collar, on a rather pretty pink silk leash. She had long, straight darkish-blond hair, which she seldom did anything special with, but tonight she’d put it up.

I dressed in black, as doms do, with knee-high leather boots with enough zips and buckles to send an airport security machine into beeping, binging hysterics.

So she was thrilled to be at the club, and I was pleased to be holding the leash of the prettiest girl in the room. (She might not have been, really, but she was and is pretty and I was extremely biassed.)

There was plenty for her to see. A lot of vanilla girls came to the bdsm club for the same reason they went to gay clubs: it was a reasonably cool crowd, and doing anything without consent was disapproved of. And if some man didn’t take a hint whern it came from girls, he’d have it explained to him by the bouncers. So it was a safe place for pretty young girls who just wanted to dance. And Arethusa’s previous lover was a woman, so she liked watching pretty girls too.

It wasn’t supposed to be a sex-on-premises venue, but I took her for a tour of some of the darker corners. There was a girl kneeling under one of the tables sucking her dom’s cock, and elsewhere a Domme was masturbating her slaveboi, who, I assume, wasn’t allowed to come.

So it was living up to Arethusa’s idea of what a decadent bdsm club should be like.

But about ten, I heard my name. An ex-submissive of mine had seen me, and she was shouting out, “Hey, Jaime!”

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But there’s something about swans. They have a habit of turning into people, and people have a habit of turning into swans. And people have a habit of falling in love/lust with swans, and swans have a habit of falling in love/lust with humans. And their identity is often confused: is that person who looks like a human really a swan in disguise? Is that swan really a person?

Many of the swan-human stories are erotic. The reason (maybe) is in the fact that swans combine both male and female characteristics in one body. The white body (or black) symbolises the purity of women, and its rounded contours are female. However, the long neck is male-phallic: reminiscent of the penis. And, of course, male swans actually do have a penis.

If we move from the classical story of Leda and the Swan, and look at Celtic sources, one of the earliest surviving tales of human-swan beings is of the Children of Lir.

The Children of Lir

King Lir is the same guy as Shakespeare’s King Lear, though Shakespeare’s version leaves out the swans and the magical transformations. In fact Lir’s correct name is Lear, but in English he’s usually called Lir to distinguish him from from the Shakespeare version.

Anyway, Lir marries Aoibh, which is the Celtic spelling for Eve. Celtic spelling was invented by foreign monks, and is utterly stupid. I say this as a Celt. From here I’m going to call her Eve.

Lir and Eve have four children: Fionnuala (Fenella), and the boys Aodh (pronounced Eh, and probably a version of the name Hugh), Fiacra and Conn. But Eve, beautiful and universally loved, dies.

So Lir marries Aoife (more like Eva), and she’s jealous of the memory of Eve, still so widely loved. So she turned Lir and Eve’s children into swans.

They spend 900 years in swan form, able to speak and sing beautifully, but stuck in swan form. Finally, they are freed to return to human form by the prophesied marriage of two people who we won’t worry about here. However, because they’re 900 years old, they die.

There are various Christian versions of the story, with them being freed by a monk, or by the tolling of a church bell, but those bits were added later to save the story from being excised entirely, by the new Christian overloads.

One significant thing about this story is that the four of them were bound together by silver chains, for that 900 years. It was the breaking of the chains at that wedding that allowed them to transform back.

But 900 years is a long time to spend in bondage, and all the safety manuals advise against it.

For a really good poem about The Children of Lir, conveying something of the sadness and isolation of those four swan-children, children even at 900-0dd years old, and about to die, clickmy earlier post, here.

I chose a poem a poem by a friend of WB Yeats, Katharine Tynan. It was one of his favourite of her poems. You can find it that post, which I’ve linked to here.

There are many poems based on the Children of Lir legend, which I discuss here.

There’s one by Yeats’s friend “AE”, but it followed a later version of the story, and I’m not going to use it.

This is from Twenty-One Poems by Katharione Tynan, selected by WB Yeats. So it’s not Yeats, but there is a Yeats connection. It’s an image of their last days as swans, shortly before they transform back to human form and die.

THE CHILDREN OF LIR

Out upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses;Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool;Overhead the sunset fire and flame amassesAnd the moon to eastward rises pale and cool.Rose and green around her, silver-gray and pearly,

Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed; For, to wake at daybreak, birds must couch them early: And the day’s a long one since the dawn was red.

The children transforming into swans

On the chilly lakelet, in that pleasant gloaming, See the sad swans sailing: they shall have no rest:Never a voice to greet them save the bittern’s booming Where the ghostly sallows sway against the West. ‘Sister,’ saith the gray swan, ‘Sister, I am weary,’Turning to the white swan wet, despairing eyes; ‘O’ she saith, ‘my young one! O’ she saith, ‘my dearie !’ Casts her wings about him with a storm of cries.

Woe for Lir’s sweet children whom their vile stepmother Glamoured with her witch-spells for a thousand years; Died their father raving, on his throne another, Blind before the end came from the burning tears. Long the swans have wandered over lake and river; Gone is all the glory of the race of Lir: Gone and long forgotten like a dream of fever: But the swans remember the sweet days that were.

Hugh, the black and white swan with the beauteous feathers, Fiachra, the black swan with the emerald breast, Conn, the youngest, dearest, sheltered in all weathers, Him his snow-white sister loves the tenderest. These her mother gave her as she lay a-dying;

To her faithful keeping; faithful hath she been, With her wings spread o’er them when the tempest’s crying, And her songs so hopeful when the sky’s serene.

The silver chain that binds them

Other swans have nests made ‘mid the reeds and rushes, Lined with downy feathers where the cygnets sleep Dreaming, if a bird dreams, till the daylight blushes, Then they sail out swiftly on the current deep. With the proud swan-father, tall, and strong, and stately, And the mild swan-mother, grave with household cares, All well-born and comely, all rejoicing greatly: Full of honest pleasure is a life like theirs.

But alas ! for my swans with the human nature, Sick with human longings, starved for human ties, With their hearts all human cramped to a bird’s stature. And the human weeping in the bird’s soft eyes. Never shall my swans build nests in some green river, Never fly to Southward in the autumn gray, Rear no tender children, love no mates for ever; Robbed alike of bird’s joys and of man’s are they.

From 1901: half woman, half swan

Babbles Conn the youngest, ‘Sister, I remember At my father’s palace how I went in silk, Ate the juicy deer-flesh roasted from the ember, Drank from golden goblets my child’s draught of milk.

Once I rode a-hunting, laughed to see the hurry, Shouted at the ball-play, on the lake did row; You had for your beauty gauds that shone so rarely.’‘Peace’ saith Fionnuala, ‘that was long ago.’

‘Sister,’ saith Fiachra, ‘well do I remember How the flaming torches lit the banquet-hall, And the fire leapt skyward in the mid-December, And among the rushes slept our staghounds tall. By our father’s right hand you sat shyly gazing, Smiling half and sighing, with your eyes a-glow, As the bards sang loudly all your beauty praising. ‘‘Peace,’ saith Fionnuala, ‘that was long ago.’

‘Sister,’ then saith Hugh ‘most do I remember One I called my brother, one, earth’s goodliest man, Strong as forest oaks are where the wild vines clamber, First at feast or hunting, in the battle’s van. Angus, you were handsome, wise, and true, and tender, Loved by every comrade, feared by every foe: Low, low, lies your beauty, all forgot your splendour.’ ‘Peace,’ saith Fionnuala, ‘that was long ago.’

The children suddenly ageing, back in human form

Dews are in the clear air and the roselight paling; Over sands and sedges shines the evening star;

And the moon’s disc lonely high in heaven is sailing; Silvered all the spear-heads of the rushes are. Housed warm are all things as the night grows colder, Water-fowl and sky-fowl dreamless in the nest; But the swans go drifting, drooping wing and shoulder Cleaving the still water where the fishes rest.

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